Handshake With A Ghost
by 10 of Spades
Summary: When Wanda gets a distress call from the Barton farm regarding the Winter Soldier, she doesn't expect to find herself going against all orders to rescue the broken man that reminds her of Pietro. Yet, she quickly finds herself living undercover and when trying to save the Bucky Barnes no one knows, Wanda is forced to test alliances, friendships, and trust for the sake of a ghost.
1. Red

**AN: Hello there fellow Avengers/Captain America fans, and welcome to my first attempt at a multi-chapter Marvel fic. With my Hobbit one about to wrap up (insert shameless plug for Mirkwood here) I figured I would get back to one of my favorite fandoms.**

 **The basic premise comes from the similarities I saw between two of my favorite characters: Wanda Maximoff and Bucky Barnes. You already read the summary so I'm not giving any more info out here except it takes place post-Age of Ultron and before Civil War. Just assume it's AU as we know very little about Civil War ploy yet and it is impossible for this story to end up anything like it. With that said, I hope you enjoy.**

 **The** **Eclipsed Men**

Clint had been sitting out on his porch, trying to catch a spare moment between putting the kids to bed, cleaning up after dinner, and cleaning up from the renovation work he had been doing. The night was still and quite, the way he liked, and he could hear a breeze sweeping across the farm, rustling his hair. This was why he lived a secret life. What other agent got to live like this?

It had been an uneventful couple of months since the cleanup of what Laura had called "Aisle Ultron." Sure, Clint wasn't complaining. It was more of a comment, really. It had given him the much needed time to spend time with Nathan and the rest of his family, fix up the house, and otherwise have a little rest and relaxation. Natasha had come to visit a couple of times, and he'd gotten some basic information about the new Avengers' training, and while he coveted those descriptions, the quiet simplicity of the farm life kept him from turning back.

As the wind brushed across the tips of the grass, he sighed.

"Clint?" Laura asked from the open doorway.

"Yeah?" he turned, to face his wife. Her warm smile mimicked the warm glow from inside, but a dark nervousness rested behind her eyes.

"I was looking for the level in the supply closet and I saw there was some sort of light coming form the barn," she confessed. Her husband felt an immediate rush and whirled to his right, looking at the structure that had seemed commonplace just a moment ago and now appeared looming and dangerous. "Did you leave a light-"

"No," he shook his head. "No, I didn't."

"Should I get the bow?" she asked, looking at the barn with an apprehension.

"If they don't know who we are already, we shouldn't get them a reason to," he reasoned, standing up. "Go upstairs with the kids. Lock the doors. I'm taking the shotgun."

"Are you sure?" she questioned, still hanging in the doorway.

"It's fine," he reassured, putting a hand on her shoulder. "It's probably just a rabbit that got in front of the motion censor." She nodded, still not quite convinced. "If I'm not back at the house in 10 minutes, call Natasha. Call Stark. Hell, call Fury if you need to just…"

"Be careful," she finished his thought. The archer dashed to the side, looking back just quick enough to see her vanish back inside the house, to hear the front door slam and triple lock. This was why he'd been warned against living a secret life. What other agent had to live like this?

The shotgun was hidden in the porch. His fingers never fumbled over the loose board as he retrieved the weapon from the compartment, but he could feel something wavering inside his throat. It was different than his missions before. Before, he only risked his own life and the security of an administration that few even knew existed. And hey, maybe the world was at stake but he had backup. Here he could suddenly felt the night closing in and choking him as he looked at the dim and flickering light that came from the barn. He knelt there for a moment, staring at its pulsing glow and took several deep breaths. Then, he sprung into action.

A quick dash was all he needed to be at the barn wall, a moment to gather his thoughts was all that was required. But just as he raised the gun to beat against the wooden planks, the front doors of the structure crashed open, the shadow of a man sprinting out onto the farm. Clint's heart felt like it stopped beating as he gave chase. The person was slowing down, against all odds, as if it didn't have a plan of where it would go next.

"Put your hands above your head!" Clint shouted. The figure dropped to his knees in the wild grasses, seemingly giving up on his endeavor. The agent walked slowly closer, apprehensive as to what the person could be doing. "You're trespassing you know," he informed the runner. The other man lifted his face slightly, letting the dusk set light and shadow across it.

The man had a hollow face with empty blue eyes and a facial expression as if he was still in shock from some sort of tragic accident. His lank dark hair hung in front of his face, almost covering the healing bruises and scratches he had on his face. The man didn't look at Clint, but also didn't look away. There was something horrifically familiar about his face, but the agent couldn't put his finger on it.

"Hiding on another person's property is illegal, you know," Clint pointed out. The man didn't respond, just knelt there in the dirt. He was wearing an oversized black sweatshirt that gave the illusion that he was shrinking into himself. All his clothes were ridiculously worn and dirty, as was all the exposed skin the bowman could see. _He's probably homeless,_ Clint thought, _just down on his luck._ But another part of his head was screaming that no one had ever come to the house before this and definitely hadn't hidden in his barn. Still, he extended a hand. "You don't seem to be dangerous," he decided aloud. The man looked up at him with wide eyes. Even with the facial hair and tired face, he seemed to be young, younger than Clint at least. But furthermore there was a sort of sorrowful youth beneath the man's eyes that made the agent pause. The man still didn't move. Clint shook his left hand as emphasis for his offer. "I'll help you up." The man didn't look convinced. The less the runner spoke, the more nervous it was making the father. "Can you talk?"

"When I want to," the man whispered. His voice was hoarse and rough from underuse. Clint raised his eyebrows.

"Good. You want to tell me why you were in my barn?" he asked. The other man sort of shrugged, an answer that was almost offensive. Instead of speaking at all, the man seemed to try to read Clint's face, as if the clues to his very existence was hidden in the wrinkle between his eyebrows.

"Are you from around here?" the archer asked, skeptical. The man didn't answer, just shook his head. Clint reached his hand further down. "Do you have a name?" The runner stared at the agent's palm for a minute, before reaching out himself and taking it. He didn't need to say a name at all. The father knew exactly who it was. The fingers glimpsed from under the sweatshirt sleeve glinted in the dying light and were cool and slick against Clint's skin. The man's arm wasn't made of flesh and bone at all. The sweatshirt slipped further down his forearm. It was made of metal. The bowman had the time to think, _Winter Soldier, oh shit,_ before he took the butt of the shotgun and clocked the assassin over the head with it. The renegade Hydra agent toppled like a pile of bricks, his eyes rolling back into his head and grip on Clint's fingers releasing.

Wanda did not sign up for this. Both Steve's phone and the landline at the training center had been buzzing for the past hour, and she was sick and tired of being the secretary while the others were away. She had been holding strong and not answering the entire time when she saw an unknown number, the calls she had been told to ignore. Wanda leaned back in the chair and stared at the vibrating device. It announced that there were 5 new voicemails from a number listed as 'unknown.' Tempted, she drummed her fingers on the table as she eyed it suspiciously. With almost every other Avenger off doing something else, Steve, Natasha, and Sam on what they called a "private investigation mission," she was just about to go insane. It wouldn't have been as bad if Vision had been deployed to work with Nick Fury on a new plan for threat analysis, but without him, Wanda had just about had it. Surrounded only by basic personnel and the infuriating phone, Wanda gave a final growl of frustration before selecting the option to listen to the messages.

A fuzzy and familiar voice burst from the microphone, scuffing the microphone. "Hey, um…Steve. It's Clint. Don't panic, but I think I found that uh…guy you're looking for. Call me back or uh…come to my house. He's tied to our tractor right now. Hurry up. Please." Wanda furrowed her eyebrows and continued to listen.

"Don't know if you got my last message, Steve, but you need to pick up your phone more often. Like I said, we have an old friend of yours at my house right now, tied up in my barn. I don't know what to do. Communicate in some form so I can figure it out." Wanda shrugged as the next call from Clint began to play, but was quickly shocked by his quickly rising and apprehensive voice.

"God damn, Steve. I need you here, like, right now. Don't know if you got my last message or just didn't understand what I meant. Your old Sergeant buddy is currently chained to my tractor. Call me back or come and pick him up before he wakes up and freaks out." Another pause. Wanda began to stand.

"Steve! Where are you?" She recoiled when a high pitched shriek screamed from the microphone as Clint shouted through the phone. "I have a Russian assassin in my barn! He's yours!"

"I'm going to call Stark if I don't here from you soon. I know you don't want Tony getting involved in this, but I have to keep my family safe." Something about the way her friend threatened Tony Stark's presence in the affair made Wanda's grip around the cell phone tighten as she exited into Steve's texts. He still wasn't smart enough to set a password. With a couple of clicks, she'd managed to send a brief but all the more descriptive response.

 **Don't call Stark. Wanda headed over. Stay put. Everything will be fine.**

It was even deeper into midnight when she finally arrived, the glow about her hands making a faint red light illuminate her path. The house and residing barn looked like a painting, no movement to be detected. The slightest wind rippled through the grass as she got closer. Wanda could barely glimpse the edge of a face peeking out of one of the second story windows. Even with the most brief of identification, she could see it as Laura. Giving a little wave first, she cautiously waited for a response. The woman in the house paused a moment, before gently tapping the window and pointing out at the barn.

 _Barton must have stayed to watch the intruder,_ she thought. It was only natural, she supposed. After all, there had been many a time in which she'd done the same for Pietro, and he'd done the same for her. Another little wave and Wanda was sure that Laura understood the plan.

Everything felt more than eerie as she approached the barn, the sound of crickets swallowing the sound like it was water. She never really got used to hearing them now. Back in Sokovia they didn't have those insects making noise all hours of the night. Shaking free all thoughts of the atmosphere, Wanda tapped on the barn door and felt her heart pound in her throat waiting for a response.

The door lurched open as she finally saw the eyes of a familiar face. "Hey!" Clint greeted, looking tired but otherwise grateful. He opened the door wider. "Wanda, you're finally here."

"I said I would be," she responded stiffly. She wasn't quite sure why all the other Avengers greeted each other with the most obvious statements. The agent didn't seem too ruffled at her words though, waving her inside. The was a moment of tense silence as her eyes adjusted to the bright lantern light.

"Where's Steve?" Clint asked, trying to sound nonchalant but still carrying a nervous quality.

"On a personal mission with Sam and Natasha," Wanda breathed, but she was distracted as the man on the floor finally came into focus. It wasn't at all based on sight; he was folded over on the ground, both hands shackled to the looming tractor. No, there were people she met, very rarely, that she could feel almost instantly, latching onto their minds and energy almost automatically and with little control. It was this sensation that she felt once the assassin came into focus, a tug at first before his head seemed to grab her by the hair and drag her into its madness. She could feel her eyes going red with concentration.

"Wanda don't do…" Clint's voice faded into nothingness as she found herself falling into the mind of a man she knew nothing about.

 _A man sat in the hollow chair, looking out a cracked silled window. Wanda stepped forward to look out as well. The world outside was completely undefined, a blur of green, brown, and white. The man seemed to be watching something outside with a strange intensity. It must have been in a fault in the memory, an inconsistency in the assassin's head, but Wanda started when she actually looked at the face of the smooth man put before her. He looked like the eclipse that caused the broken soldier lying in the barn. The man sighed as he let his head rest against the garish wallpaper. Next to the pink and yellow flowers on the walls, he looked faded: a stiff button-up shirt stuck to his chest with shiny black suspenders. and untucked from his black dress pants, bare feet rested on a little writing desk tucked in the corner. His dark hair was gelled to the point of being a solid mass, though stiff strands had been bent and fell in front of his clean shaven face. As Wanda stepped forward, he seemed to notice her presence in his head, sitting up and staring directly at her with eyes like the winter sky. She froze in that cold gaze, worried he would push her out, try to fight her looking at his past, present, and future. Just as she braced another wave of energy, a voice called out from the thin mattress she hadn't noticed on the other side of the room._

 _"_ _Hey, Buck?" it asked. The dark-haired man stopped and sunk back into the memory, stared past Wanda and at the dingy bed. She turned with him and started, as she found a familiar pair of eyes looking right past her. She'd seen pictures of the man before Captain America, but looking at him fully realized in an assassin's head was something else entirely. Wanda could still see Steve in his expectant look and optimistic half-smile, but the small-framed, sickly, younger version of her friend's eyes lit up in a way she had never seen when the other man simply replied, "Yeah?"_

 _"_ _What do you think dying feels like," Steve asked, sitting up on the thin pillow. Wanda was expecting more of a reaction than she got._

 _"_ _Why?" Buck responded, a light behind his eyes flashing with an excited twinkle. "Are you making plans?" Wanda felt like she had been punched in the stomach with the response that reminded her of what Pietro would have said if she had asked that question. Helpless, she stared as the two slowly smiled, before breaking into nervous and relieved laughter. Something in her chest cracked._

 _"_ _No," Steve heaved, before his voice crashed into a series of barking coughs. The assassin, or whatever he was, hurriedly pulled a handkerchief from his shirt pocket and handed it to the trembling man. Steve covered his mouth as he continued to hack. Wanda turned back to Buck, who was now leaning against the window again, pain in watching Steve stressing the features of his face. The fit subsided slowly, and while Steve tucked the handkerchief away quickly, Wanda knew both she and the assassin had seen the reddish stain that resulted in his coughing._

 _"_ _I'm sor-" Buck tried, but Steve waved him away._

 _"_ _I was just thinking about it," the smaller man wheezed. "I mean, do you think it's all painful, or is there peace?" The dark-haired man considered this for a moment before standing straighter._

 _"_ _It depends on what you think dying is" he clarified._

 _"_ _Well-"_

 _"_ _But that doesn't matter anyway," Buck declared, making vague gestures with his hands a forced optimism ran rampant of his face. "Because neither of us are dying anytime soon."_

 _Steve frowned and accused, "You can't be sure of that."_

 _"_ _Why did you bring this up anyway? I don't want to talk about it." As the dark-haired man became more and more frustrated she could hear his very heartbeat begin to pound as it echoed throughout the room inside his head._

 _"_ _I just thought-" Steve pleaded._

 _"_ _No! You aren't dying Steve. I'm not dying." Wanda began to slowly step back. The conversation was too real, too similar to ones she'd had, too raw._

 _"_ _Bucky." The young Captain America raised his voice. "You left the letter on the writing desk when you went to get milk yesterday. I didn't mean to read it but…" Bucky opened his mouth for a response, but almost immediately closed it. Only the sound of his heartbeat filled the room._

 _"_ _We don't have to worry about Charlie's guys anymore. They'll stop coming after us after I get deployed," he reasoned._ The war, _Wanda suddenly realized._ They were leaving for the war.

 _"_ _I'm going to try and enlist again tomorrow," Steve confessed. The heartbeat got louder._

 _"_ _We've already talked about this," the assassin dismissed, staring outside rather than at his friend._

 _"_ _No," Steve argued, looking legitimately angry for the first time. "You've told me what I should be doing."_

 _"_ _I've done what I can to do what's expected of me, and tired to keep you from doing something idiotic while I'm at it," Bucky explained._

 _"_ _And while you were at it you got mixed up in the wrong kind of people," the smaller man reminded him. The wrong people. The kind of people that always seemed to find her, always seemed to tempt her and Pietro._

 _"_ _I'm not going to die Steve."_

 _The heartbeat reached a roar, and it seemed like it was rushing closer, drowning out what her friend said next. A whistle sounded somewhere in the assassin's head and Wanda realized it wasn't a heartbeat at all. It was a train. She stared at Bucky and Steve, who looked as though they had finally settled. The sound of the oncoming train reached a shrieking conclusion and the little light within the cramped apartment snapped out. Wanda found herself screaming along with Buck as she could feel herself flung somewhere dark and cold. She was falling, she was falling and she knew no one would ever find her when she hit the ground. Thoughts intertwined with the man she was examining were becoming overwhelming. Wanda was lost, she couldn't disconnect._

 _He was shouting as the rush of air was almost too much to handle. The same voice called back and forth, one the kind voice of the Bucky she'd seen in the room. The other voice was the same in pitch and quality, made by the same vocal chords, but was empty as it announced. "Asset Protocol 3975 override." It was then that she realized she'd never seen the Winter Soldiers face before, but that voice, the harsh and scathing voice she'd listened to back in experimentation, was one she couldn't forget._

 _She hadn't realized that her previous inspiration had been a man before a machine. She hadn't seen the mirror images between the three eclipsed men: Steve's friend with the throw-away grin, the HYDRA example she'd been taught to follow, and the danger that lay battered on the ground. They were all one in the same, melting together somewhere in the man's head._

 _"_ _Please, please help me!" Bucky begged._

 _"_ _Engagement of hippocampus and memorial cortex is forbidden," his voice droned back._

 _"_ _I can't die alone," Bucky realized._

 _"_ _Wiping recommended," the Soldier demanded._

 _"_ _I can't die again. I don't want to die again…" Bucky cried. "I have to find him. I have to…please don't, it's so cold in here. It's so cold."_

"Wanda," a familiar voice demanded, and she could feel herself shaken from the state of power. Clint looked even more concerned. She could feel her fingernails digging into his arms as he helped her off the dirty barn floor. "Are you okay?"

"I'm…I'm…" She didn't know. Wanda could still feel his pulsing fear in her fingertips.

"I told you not to," Clint frowned.

"He connected too quickly. I couldn't back out," she explained, leaning against the barn wall as she stared at the man still limp against the tractor.

"Just, stay here. Stark is coming over." At Clint's mention of the name Wanda flinched, and felt a spark.

"What? I told you not to." The moment of clam she had experienced since waking up had been drained from her entirely. While her first fight for the Avengers had given her a respect for the Iron Man, she still remembered the threatening tone Clint had used when he described

"I called him before you got here. I had to do something. Tony can take care of this until Steve gets back," he tried to explain. A high-pitched ringing began first in her ears, before she could feel in in her entire body.

"No, no, no, no," she raved. He was all wrong. He couldn't know. "You can't do that. You don't understand." The assassin's head had left her feeling broken again, and she could feel shards sticking out of her chest. Wanda wasn't sure that she liked the feeling, but it was one of familiarity that she grasped on to.

"You're right," Clint confessed, apprehensive. "I don't." She noticed the way he shrugged his shoulders this way when he got nervous, the way his hand vaguely switched to the shotgun that was propped against the door.

"It's a mess," she spat. "It's like two people trapped in the same head. I'm watching one man's memories while the other one is screaming." At her words, he flinched, maybe from an old experience, she didn't know. "I can help him but I can't…you can't bring Steve anywhere near him. Please. Call off Stark."

"Maybe Stark can help." The archer was slowly edging back towards the collapsed man, as if he could stop her.

"Just, let me talk to Bucky one more time," she tested.

"I can't." He shook his head.

"Stark will make things worse," Wanda promised. Clint bit his lips and made a hand gesture that went nowhere. He was grasping for a point. She could sense it.

"You give Tony a lot less credit than he deserves," the archer settled. "He can help…him…just like you can." While the last words were meant to be reassuring she felt it like an insult.

She gritted her teeth. "He can't. He never will."

"Wanda-" He was started to defend himself rather than convince her. She was so close.

"I know you're afraid about your family. I just want to-" Her hands were out in front of her and she realized that it was taken as a threat a second too late. Clint held the gun loosely, not aiming it, but ready to threaten it if he had to.

"Take a step back. You don't know who you're dealing with." His last plea, as he gestured to Bucky.

"My role in a world full of power was defined by him. I know him more than you do."

"I know it's been hard since Pietro-" before he could say the word Wanda feared the most, her hands snapped out of reflex, a red cloud of energy brought before Clint's eyes. It took her a moment to realize she now had him in the palm of her hand.

"I know you're not a fan, but I had to do this," she whispered as his blinking red eyes looked back at her, only shock conveyed in his face. "If you ask me why…" she looked over at the man in the corner. "It's instinct."

 **So! That was longer than I thought it would be, but at least we got somewhere. I'm excited to hear what you all think. If you want to be informed of when I post a new chapter on this new story, make sure to follow it. If you want to spread this story with other readers, also favorite. And as always, I want to get your feedback so put all opinions, predictions, critiques etc. in a lovely review for me. :-) Thank you for reading and until next time…**


	2. The Sky in a Storm

**The Sky in a Storm**

Steve blanched upon seeing the signed and slight ajar barn door as he finally approached. He was 12 hours late to the party, but, to be fair, he'd never gotten an invitation. Jogging in, he stood in awe of the distressed building. Things that had clearly been previously assigned a time and place we scattered all over the floor like the room of a child: tools, machine parts, empty cans of paint. His eyes fell on the tractor, the front of which had been completely torn off, exposing the smashed and crumpled engine. He could feel feel his heart rate increasing. "What's going on-" he breathed, but before he could finish, he was cut off by a blaring, familiarly obnoxious tone that made his nerves twitch in annoyance and frustration. His neck seized up.

"Well look who got their 'personal mission' ass over here!" Ducking from outside the other side of the vehicle, was the ever irritating goateed genius, his t-shirt and jeans covered in oil and grease. Steve fumbled for his words a moment and stared at the man with his mouth slightly open. No, he would handle this democratically.

"Tony, can you please-" he began, gesturing towards his associate in vain. But the Iron Man was a force that could never be stopped.

"You know, the sun has barely risen, yet it's still too late for your rocket's red bullshit, Rodgers," the engineer stung, a flippant smile disguising actual enmity.

Steve tried to control himself, forcing himself to look at him to avoid rolling his eyes. "Look, I'm sorry-" he began, ready for his grand explanation. But of course, as it always was with Tony, the patriot was quickly silenced by gloating.

"You know," the genius mused, lightly tapping his wrench against the palm of his opposite hand, "I never thought I would get to give you a lecture on responsibility and liability, but I'll tell you: I am really looking forward to it."

"That isn't fair Tony," Steve pointed out. It wasn't after all. The Captain had been trying to find his old friend, but he had apparently been looking in all the wrong places. Yet, who would ever expect the threat to be discovered in the top secret location of a hero family?

"You want to be fair?" Tony shot back, becoming more venomous by the second. "Clint is recovering from whatever psychic crap your trainee pulled this morning and the entire secrecy of his family home and their lives have been put in jeopardy."

"Wanda has never acted out before," Steve defended. Working with her at the complex, he'd found that the seemingly creepy, off kilter, experimental woman was completely different than he expected. She was sensitive, kind, even personable if she was put in a familiar setting. Tony's accusations demanded he defend the pair. "And Bucky hasn't been remotely spotted for over three months. You can't expect me to predict this."

"She was unstable from the beginning Cap, and I think you know that," Tony corrected, one eyebrow raised. "Besides, we haven't even started on the bigger issue here."

Steve sighed, aggravated. "Bucky was supposed to be somewhere in the D.C. area. That's where I was." He hadn't been irresponsible, just misinformed. On the other hand, the mechanic would equate "misinformed" with "misused."

"The _Winter Soldier_ had clearly been on the loose for far too long," the rich man growled. "And now we have an Avenger going back to her H.Y.D.R.A. roots to meet up with him at a classified and protected location." After finishing, Tony's face spread into a sarcastic and insincere smile as he mockingly clapped the wrench against his opposite hand.

"You can't possibly suggest that." Steve's nostrils were flaring.

"Out of all the personnel to receive that call-" Tony whined.

"It was to my cell phone," the captain rebuffed, "which I left her in charge of watching."

"I already called ahead to your base," the genius corrected, a blood vessel in his forehead beginning to show signs of popping. "That…Scarlet Witch reported the issue to no one and left without any sort of trace or warning. Sound suspicious?" The sarcasm, the mocking, the attitude, was about to drive his associate crazy.

"Wanda wouldn't have known what she was dealing with when she got the call," Steve insisted. Sometimes, it was like Tony was deaf, and it most definitely wasn't a problem with his ears.

"Now _we_ don't know what we're dealing with," the Iron Man spat. "Apparently, you and you army friend have been running around completing secret search missions for an assassin without any proper reporting or approval." Steve frowned. Since when was Mr. Playboy looking for outside signing?

"Look, last time I checked I didn't need your approval to look for my friend," the captain snapped. He'd struck something, because the other Avenger's mouth started to switch.

"He's a threat to safety," Tony accused. "He's a murderer. He's an assassin. If you weren't going rogue and silent to find him, authorities might have already apprehended him." Steve felt slapped. The information was public. There was way Stark was unaware.

"He wasn't dangerous," the patriot corrected. "He was confused-"

"He might have been compromised," Tony admitted, raising him hands above his head in another mocking gesture. "But it was your handling of the situation that have made him a threat."

"What do you possibly want me do then?" Steve asked, voice dripping with bitterness.

"Change is coming Rodgers," the genius slowed down, "change that's going to eliminate all these problems." His eyes flashed in the midday sun. The captain cocked his head to one side.

"Is that a threat?"

"Not unless you take it to be," Tony announced, before angrily stalking out of the barn, letting the door shut behind him.

Naturally, Steve put his head in his hands, looking back at the tractor with waning hope.

But in the corner of the barn, he spotted something, so oddly out of place, but placed so it could be easily found if it were lost: a bag, white plastic with a glaring symbol on the front of it, a logo he immediately recognized. Steve walked slowly over, rustling it so the writing faced him. A crudely rendered, but clear drawing of his shield in shaky permanent marker. Glancing around the barn, he pulled aside the the plastic, revealing a plethora of crinkled paper slips.

Steve shrugged, before fishing his hand into the bag. The piece he removed was a folded bit of paper napkin, seeing the marker stained through the cheap product. Once more, he glanced toward the barn door.

He unfolded the slip to view the scrawling handwriting.

 _A foundation for change is an oxymoron. Change requires tearing a foundation down_

The phrase was crossed out with what seemed to be a red colored pencil, but the glaring message of what had been written still shone through. The words echoed Alexander Pierce's words in a way that made the captain's skin tense. He folded the sheet, dropping it back in the bag. Steve barely breathed, drawing another scrap.

 _He tells me they fly a flag with my star on it, but I think it's the other way around._

Just like the first, he quickly discarded it back into the bag. He needed something, a sign that this wasn't any sort of red herring, something Tony had left, perhaps. Steve opened a crumpled sheet of what looked like notebook paper.

 _Don't do anything stupid until I get back._

He stared at the sheet in awe for a second, before clenching his fist protectively around the crinkling plastic and running to the door.

Wanda splashed cold water across her face and tried not to make eye contact with her reflection in the spotted motel mirror. The tips of her fingers barely trembled as she took several deep breaths. The man in the other room was like constant static in her nerves. The energy of his mind was confused and erratic, but at the same time, it had a constant intensity that she found difficult to fight. The adrenaline high of the escape was still fresh, though it hadn't exactly been very difficult or dangerous. There was no one to pursue them. Though, she did feel guilty for controlling Clint, there was something satisfying about saving the broken man who lay in the dingy bed next to the covered windows. She had kept him unconscious for the entire trip, but he had fought back. It was difficult to keep moving while keeping control, and even though she had been training, a mind like the Soldier's was always struggling.

She paused, just for a moment, watching the slightly discolored water circle down the drain, taking the mud and residue off her hands. Her palms were slightly scratched, chaffed from falling several times along her journey. They didn't bleed.

Just that moment was all her barriers and strength needed to slip just enough. A great force grabbed her roughly by the neck, and she couldn't help but shriek as she was jerked away from the sink and slammed against the wall. His metal arm was tight and smooth against her throat, but not so rough so she could not breathe. Her eyes met his, hers wide with fear, his determined. At first the look on his face was pure rage, but the longer she stared, the more obvious his confusion and desperation became.

"Location, mission, personnel," he demanded in a gruff, cold voice that she could barely associate with the man in her vision.

"Let me go!" she persisted, hoping he would back down from a conflict with her.

"Location, mission, personnel," the man repeated, not looking her in the face this time.

"We're in a motel, just outside of Cleveland," she gasped, "evading detection from the Avengers Initiative." He flinched at the mention of the initiative, turning his head further away from her gaze.

"Mission, personnel," he insisted, his grip lessening slightly. She frowned.

"I just told you."

"Mission, personnel," he still tried. The repeated phrases, words she too had been taught to say, to report, made her skin crawl and her blood boil. It wasn't fair. It wasn't right. She'd seen this man as a person and to watch him spitting out learned, tortured phrases made her sick.

"This isn't you," she persisted. "I saw you. You're not a machine." For a second, he was taken aback, his hand loosening more. His blue eyes stayed on the floor as if he were ashamed. But when he looked back up, he had that dead appearance back on his face.

"Clarify," he whispered in a voice tight enough to draw a noose.

"You were a person. I saw you and Steve-" she attempted, but at the mere mention of the name his fingers flinched, gripping her harder.

"Not relevant," he denied through gritted teeth. Wanda was starting to grow frustrated, at H.Y.D.R.A, at the Soldier, at Bucky, she didn't know.

"This is not you," she instructed.

"The Asset-" he began.

"We're not assets anymore!" she snapped. She clenched and unclenched her palms, trying to focus her energy somewhere besides the slowly bubbling rage. But when she met the man's eyes again, she was baffled when she met a look of fear.

"Why haven't you wiped me yet?" he asked in a tone she could barely hear.

"What?" He looked up at her, and for a moment, she thought he was going to finally say something, to snap out of it. Instead, his eyes stayed pleading and glassy, while his mouth seemed to move independently from the rest of his face.

"Protocol for the recovery of an asset-" he spat out more rehearsed lines, more lies. His finger tightened, and they began really squeezing her throat for the first time.

"We're not-" she repeated, but he kept going.

"-requires that the unit be wiped of all previously conflicting experience-" the longer and faster he talked, the more desperate he looked, as though he was screaming for help, begging her to save him.

"Stop!" she shrieked. Out of breath, out of patience, and out of time, Wanda tried to control herself.

"-that would otherwise create a hostile mission environment and the jeopardization of mission goals. Such protocol-" he recited. She gulped for air, and found her lungs empty. Her twitching hands, already buzzing, lashing out, pulses of red energy sending the man flying out of the bathroom and back into the poorly carpeted living space they occupied. He lie motionless on the ground as she walked over, sitting on the bed next to him.

"Where did you get that power?" he inquired, not opening his eyes. His mouth barely moved.

"What do you mean?" she shot back. He was so vague, she didn't know how to answer him.

"Powers aren't natural here," he explained. "No. Someone gave it you." Wanda let out a deep breath at the thoughts of experimentation.

"My brother and I were volunteers in the Sokovia branch," she admitted, refusing to elaborate any further. His eyes snapped open, stormy blue and churning like the sky in a storm.

"The Twins." It wasn't a question. She sat up straighter, feeling accused.

"You know?"

"I-It was mentioned to me, I think," he continued. His eyebrows drew together as he focused. "A threat. I would be retired if I wouldn't comply. Your brother and I would take my place." She knew what retired meant, and the thought of her presence bringing about such an event made her stomach turn sideways with guilt. She gritted her teeth.

"I'm Wanda," she introduced.

"Why haven't you wiped me yet, Wanda?" he demanded once more. It was obsessive and fearful, two qualities that were more than toxic together.

"Why would I would wipe you?" she reasoned. She, after all, only had a limited knowledge of what the phrase meant. Clearly memories had been removed so he could be reprogrammed, but she had no idea what such a process entailed.

"Because they want me back." Both knew exactly who _they_ were without clarification. It was an unspoken phrase, on that Wanda was afraid to even utter in her mind. She'd betrayed almost the entirety of H.Y.D.R.A, and sometimes she would lie awake wondering when double the heads would come for revenge.

"I don't work for them anymore," she avoided, making direct eye contact to prove her candor. She knew he didn't trust her. She could feel the suspicious energy glowing off of him.

"Then why did you come for me?" he responded, the words themselves getting tighter and tighter. Wanda could see and feel the tension.

"It was an accident," she answered, truthfully. She'd called it lucky earlier that day, but at the sight of the now conscious man she was beginning to wonder whether or not she had just dragged herself back into her past life.

"Don't lie to me." His voice was calm and controlled until it finally rose and shook on the last word, cracking ever so slightly as he put pressure on it. The man himself was cracking at the seems and in the pupils of his eyes she could see her reflection looking back at her.

"I don't work for them anymore. And neither do you," she supplied, stubborn and determined. Silence. He didn't move, didn't answer her, just stared upwards in no defined direction. "Bucky-" she tried.

"I'm not him," he corrected bitterly. The man's voice was far away and cold. "I barely know him." Wanda was struggling.  
"You _are_ him," she reasoned. She'd seen. She could feel him. She understood.

He denied it again. "I'm not."

"Then who are you?" she spat, used to getting the answers that she wanted. With her powers, Wanda had constantly experienced the act of knowing someone deeply and personally without even carrying on a conversation, yet now she was being told that she was wrong. Impossible.

"Bits and pieces," he elaborated, saying the statement as if it were some sort of title. She sighed, letting her hands haphazardly fall into her lap.

"What should I call you?" At her question, he seemed to gain some sort of initiative, sitting up. He paused for a second, looking around the room like it was the first time he had seen it. Slowly but surely, he got to his feet.

"You won't to call me anything," the man decided aloud, and Wanda knew where he was a second before he began to bee-line for the room's door.

"You can't leave," she called after him, stood up and crossed. It achieved the effect she wanted. He stopped, if only for that short interval of time.

"Says who?" he taunted.

"Where would you go?" She raised an eyebrow. "People must be looking for you. If you leave, real operatives could still find you. At least you're safe with me."

"If you think we're safe anywhere, you're wrong," he pointed out. The words rang in her head like a bell, too close for her ears, almost shattering. Of course she would never be safe. she never had been safe, and now…now she had taken on a man who's burdens and past lives were shattering any defense she could have mounted. Wanda tried not to think about that.

"Then it's good we're both experienced in running," she avoided. Once again, a heavy and deep silence filled the dingy room. Emotions were passing over the man's face so quickly, even the Avenger's power was unable to accurately gage them. Confusion. Anger. Desperation. Melancholy. Suspicion.

"If you're not recovering me for them, why would you want me to stay?" Her answer would be this man's face. _Why did I save you?_ Wanda didn't know. It had been such a guttural, visceral response to what she'd seen, she had barely considered what she was doing and why. But of course, that wasn't an answer. She fumbled.

"When I looked into your mind, I saw a man," she answered slowly. She was finding the answer herself with each word she spoke.

"Bucky Barnes," the man clarified, saying the name in an eerie way that man it seem as if it wasn't his. Wanda hesitated just for a moment as her breakthrough caught in her throat, choking her. The answer was there, and it wouldn't leave.

"What I saw reminded me of my brother," she confessed. Obviously, she'd been wrong. The man who stood before her was nowhere close to her sibling anymore.

"What happened to the other Twin?" he inquired, speaking in a soft and kind manner that made him sound almost human. His nature was overriding the program.

"Pietro was killed a short time after we were freed," Wanda whispered and bit her bottom lip to stop it moving.

"Wanda, I'm sorry," he faltered, "but the only thing Bucky and your brother have in common is that they're dead." The man looked as though he would turn around to leave again, but instead patiently waited for her response.

"They're not entirely dead. I remember Pietro, and I'll always take him with me," she murmured. It had been something that Clint and Steve had told her many times, trying to help her fill the empty feeling her brother had left in her chest. "I can see that you have kept Bucky with you."

"I haven't found all of him yet," the man admitted, almost guilty.

"I can help you," she sparked. Finally, he was letting her in. She could feel the itch in the energy. Between her fingers, pulses of red danced. She held up her hand to show him. "I can use this to let you see everything."

He darkened. "Maybe not everything."

She nodded and promised, "Only what you want me to find." Reluctantly, the man lumbered back to the bed and sat nervously on the edge of it.

"I'm sorry about your brother," he apologized, staring at he stained carpet. "Really."  
"I'm sorry about you," she replied. It was somber, even in the early afternoon, as the sun filtered through the blinds in dusty rays. Suddenly, Wanda grinned "I know what to call you."

"What?" He looked taken aback.

"Barnes. Just plain and simple Barnes," she concluded.

"Why?"

"It was your last name," she reasoned simply, "and it's also where I found you." The man smiled, and in the tips of her fingers she could feel him. _Barnes. I like it._

 **Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed! If you did, and want to be informed of when the next update occurs (hopefully soon) remember to follow this story. If you want to share it with other authors and readers, be sure to favorite it as well. And as always, I love hearing from you guys so please make sure to leave any feedback, critiques, predictions, etc. in a lovely little review. Until next time…**


	3. Invincible

**Invincible**

She always noticed how he leaned away from her, constantly keeping his skin as far away from her body as he possibly could. Barnes sat on the bed, his knees tucked against his chest, chin turned down to cover his exposed neck. Wanda couldn't help but feel guilty, even though she'd done nothing to harm him. He was so defensive, so on edge, almost like a young child. But what worried her most was the constant look of fear and distrust on his face. "Are you sure you want me to try this?" she asked. He rarely looked at her when she spoke, but he locked eye contact when she sat on the end of the bed.

"You said it wouldn't hurt?" Barnes confirmed. She sighed, knotting her fingers together.

"Physically, no," she admitted. "You were unconscious the last time I tried. I'm not sure how it will affect you now." Barnes withdrew further and bit his lip.

"It can't be worse than everything else, can it?" he pointed out. Wanda found it difficult to tell whether he was making some sort of dark joke, or reminiscing.

"I don't know," she worried. "I won't know until I see in there." The pair shared a couple of deep breaths and silent moments.

"Alright," he agreed, picking at the end of his lank hair. He watched his thumb repeatedly roll the strands against his knees. Wanda couldn't help but feel just as restrained and detached, despite her efforts to reach out. He had begun fighting against her again; every twitch of her fingers made him draw and hold a breath. _It would be fine,_ she told herself. _He'll come around, once he figures out what is going on in his head._ Once again, she stared until Barnes looked back.

"I need you to breathe as calmly as you possibly can," she instructed, carefully, "and I need you to stay very relaxed. The less agitated you are, the easier it will be for me." She noticed that he didn't blink enough once he had been engaged, just stared with cold, almost empty, blue eyes.

"Understood."

"Is there anything you want to know?" Wanda asked. "Anything you want me to find?" He bit his lip, looking downcast.

"Most of what I remember…" Barnes began, "it's not what I want to know. It's…mostly the Soldier. I remember their faces. I can still-" Something in his face twitched, and she could see a horrible moment of realization happening behind his face.

"I can try to avoid the Soldier, if you want," she offered. The runaway nodded slowly, still trapped in whatever gruesome discovery he had just made. Wanda gave him a moment to think. _Time_ , she told herself. _He just needs time._

"Steve," he whispered, to her surprise. "I want to see Steve." The more he thought about it, the more he seemed to like the idea. The ghost of a smile began to tug at the sides of his lips.

Wanda squinted. "How much do you know about him?" Barnes let out a laugh that seemed to be just air: empty and joyless.

"The same thing that I know about Bucky. Bi-"

She rolled her eyes, already aware of his response. "Bits and pieces," she finished, nodding. He raised his eyebrows and tilted his head to one side. _Pietro_ , the name flashed across her mind out of her control as she saw the expression her brother always made when he was listening to her. The feeling quickly dissolved as her fingernails started to glow red. "I hope I can help you Barnes," Wanda admitted. "You're…a good man."

He flinched, nostrils flaring. She could see him biting the inside of cheeks, and wondered if he did it to make himself bleed. Based on the brimming tears in his reddening eyes, she supposed so. "I don't try to tell you that you're an innocent woman, Wanda," he spat bitterly, "So don't lie and tell me that." Barnes opened his mouth to continue, but before the venom could keep pouring out of his mouth she lunged forward, and felt her nails dig into his arm. And her powers dug into his mind.

 _Blank darkness, besides the dim red light that softly illuminated Barnes' past. "_ Come on," _she whispered to herself, slowly turning in a wide circle. "_ Steve. Steve." _Wanda repeated his name over and over, as she tried to picture the leader's face in her mind. A couple of times, she thought she'd found something, but Barnes kept his mind more well-guarded than she thought. Knocked out, he had invited her it, enticed her to come. He was trying to relax; that she was sure. It just wasn't working well enough. Wanda would have to fight for it._

 _"_ _Steve Grant Rogers!" she shouted loud enough to scream in real life. It was like shouting into a dark cavern, and for a moment, nothing happened. Until, it all came crashing back at her in a rush of light and sound. Her words were echoed back, but in a cocky, slightly slurred, yet familiar voice._

" _Steve Grant Rogers," Bucky said, as the scene began to slowly materialize around her. The memory was dull and drained: the inside of an army camp. Wanda waited for the image to focus, but the edges of everything she saw stayed blurred and jilted._ Is he high? _she thought to herself. Bucky Barnes sat on a medical table, his elbows resting casually on his knees. She couldn't help but notice the hastily discarded bucket that rested at his feet. Bucky himself looked, well, awful. He had a couple of scrapes and bruises on his face, but that was the only color his skin was getting. Besides the black and blue bumps, his face was pale, borderline yellow. But the dark circles under his eyes didn't retract from the piercing and playful blue despite their glassy and unfocused appearance. He grinned and nodded over at the man in the doorway."I didn't recognize you." Wanda followed his eyes to the object of her search._

 _Steve looked totally different than he had been when she'd seen him last, but he was the familiar Captain America she had grown to care for. A trench coat and army helmet framed his carefree smile that Wanda wasn't used to seeing on her leader's face. At Bucky's comment, he self-consciously touched his chest with a shy smirk."It's going to take some getting used to," he fumbled, "Trust me, for the first couple of weeks I couldn't even look in the mirror without getting confused."_ Oh Steve, genuine to a fault. _Bucky looked downcast again, worried about the consequence of his passing comment._

 _"_ _I'm-" he tried to apologize._

 _Steve waved him away."There's nothing to be sorry for Buck. I feel better than I ever have," He walked over to his friend, almost going straight through Wanda. "Speaking of which," he said, taking a seat, "how are you?"_

 _"_ _Ah well, I'm alright," the sergeant muttered. "I haven't…" A great lurch took over her stomach. The creases in his forehead told her everything, reminded her of someone else. Pietro hated lying to the people he cared about. And just like her brother, Bucky told the lie with a dopey yet unconvincing smile on his face. Steve assumed Wanda's usual role, that of seeing through all the bullshit. Her friend's face went grave._

 _"_ _Haven't what?" he asked._

 _"_ _Haven't been able to keep anything down." Bucky's expression staled._

 _"_ _What do you mean?" the captain pressed._

 _"_ _Not even water," he finally admitted. "I've thrown up at least three times today." His foot lazily gestured at the bucket. Steve took a moment to process what that meant. Wanda knew all too well the dangers of dehydration. A person could go down fast._

 _"_ _What did the doctors say?" the patriot said._

 _"_ _By body's trying to get rid of whatever sick shit they jacked me up on," his friend shrugged and cracked his knuckles. Another quirk Wanda had earned from personality experience: understating was much easier than lying._

 _"_ _But you will get better?"_

 _Bucky chuckled. Wanda noticed the way his nose wrinkled ever so slightly when he laughed. Compared to the wreck she had left back in the hotel room, it was an imperfection that was so delightfully human, she couldn't help but feel the corners of her mouth turning up as well."It's gonna take worse than some psycho Nazi with a stick-on face to kill me."_

 _"_ _It doesn't get much worse than H.Y.D.R.A," Steve pointed out. Bucky bit his lip in some attempt to contain himself. The silence that they left behind was filled with the sound of honesty and heavy rain. The sergeant playfully bumped the captain's shoulder._

 _"_ _Remember what I told you on my birthday last year?" he reminded. The blonde hero started laughing at the very thought. Stuck in the dank army camp, Wanda wished that she could have found that memory instead._

 _"_ _Yeah?"_

 _Bucky spread his arms wide, the toothy expression back, along with a dazed addition."We're invincible." His statement only made his buddy laugh harder._

 _"_ _You were drunk off your ass when you said that," Rogers informed him._

 _"_ _Eh," the dark-haired man reasoned, "It's not the worst mentality to live by."_

 _"_ _And you're clearly on_ so _many painkillers right now."_

 _Bucky started to wheeze."You're not wrong." Wanda watched Steve rub his friend's back with a feeling of distinct loss in the pit of her stomach. After a short break in conversation, she made her decision. Back to the hotel. Her fingers began to twitch, and so did someone else's._

 _The peace was broken by a loud knock from the other side of the room._

 _"_ _Sergeant Barnes," a voice greeted. "I've heard a lot about you. It's nice to finally-" The last words were drowned out as Wanda turned to look, barely glancing the figure of a man with a smiling face and neatly kept dark facial hair. The longer she looked, the more the image warped into a completely different scene than the memory she had just lived in. A white-haired man lay crumpled against the side of a car. He looked up, and while she could barely hear his feeble voice she could see him mouth those same words. "Sergeant Barnes." And there was blood. Oh god, there was blood. His metal hand and arm made quick use of the man's head. Wanda wanted to vomit._

Barnes did, hunched over the bedside trash bin. He was shaking so hard he could barely hold the garbage. She waited for him to finish, to scream, to cry, to make any sort of outcry, the way she was used to people reacting. But he stayed almost completely silent, and once again that odd emptiness inhabited his expression. The only movement in him was the up and down rhythm of his shoulders as he tried to breathe. "Barnes?" she said, reaching out one hand, the same way that Steve had. He saw what she was doing too late, and the moment her skin made contact with his, the assassin writhed away. His fist went straight through the bedside table, all but shattering the wood as well as the lamp. Wanda covered her mouth to keep from making any more noise. Her companion leapt up in the wreckage, and she was sure he was now going to bolt. Instead, his mouth worked wordlessly.

"I need to-to…I need…" His metal fingers worked through his long hair. She could see the desperation in his face telling him to rip it out at the root.

"Barnes, please," she whispered, "We're not there anymore. Everything is going to be-" The doorknob across the sloppy room gave a sudden violent shudder, followed by several loud thumping knocks. Both of the enhanced froze in their tracks.  
"Excuse me?" the voice of a stern man shouted through the closed door. "Are there people in here?" Barnes looked at Wanda like a toddler who had just gotten caught red handed. He quickly shook his head, as if to say _No, no, no, no, no._ "This room is not officially rented to anyone," the voice reminded Wanda. Well, of course it wasn't. She used the red manipulation to get them in without identification, and without paying. "If you're in there…I'm calling the police!" Barnes didn't seem to mind as much when she grabbed him by the hand and started running for the window.

He exited the barn with eyes everywhere, wary of the fact that Tony could still be lurking around. Steve's fingers clutched the bag tenderly, worried he would rip the plastic. More than anything he wanted to lock himself away and read all the notes alone, but as he glanced over at the farm house, he realized he had other obligations. Clint's wife sat on one of the rocking chairs, holding the baby in her arms, and eyeing her property with a suspicious look until she saw the captain. "Steve!" she smiled and waved enthusiastically. "You didn't think you could leave without saying hello, did you?" He waved back and walked over onto the porch.

"Laura, I'm sorry I-" he apologized. She waved him away.

"It's fine." She stood up, gesturing for the door. "Come in. Clint will be happy to see you." Steve nodded in thanks as Laura led him into the house. He was careful to watch where he stepped, wary of legos and other random toys that the kids left scattered on the floor. They quickly found the children too, building what appeared to be a little play castle outside Clint's room.

"Cooper, Lila, you remember Mr. Steve don't you?" The children exchanged a look before waving sheepishly, unsure of what they should say. "He's come to talk to Dad. Why don't you come down for lunch?" The little boy leapt up first, his sister dashing after him. Laura smirked. "Clint's in the bedroom. I should go after the kids."

"Thanks, Laura." The door creaked as it opened, and for a moment, Steve thought there had to be some sort of mistake. The entire room was dim: curtains close pinned together, all the lights turned off. Clint was sprawled in a cushy armchair in the corner, his eyes closed, hand on his temple.

"Barton?" The father opened his eyes.

"Steve," he greeted in a rough voice. "Glad you could make it."

"Look Clint, I'm-" Steve was ready for a big apology, one he had started to prepare in his head since he arrived. But his friend was having none of it.

"It's fine," the archer said. "There was nothing you could have done."

"And Wanda?" the captain asked.

"She wouldn't have done something to me without a good reason. She's a good kid.," Clint paused and rubbed his temples. With his eyes closed, he continued, "You know…I wouldn't have tied him up like that if I didn't think…damn."

"Understood," the leader responded, "I'm sorry he turned up here. I don't know how-" Before he could say anything else, Clint made a sudden admission he'd bee containing the entire time.

Opening his eyes, he blurted, "I think Tony is wrong about Bucky."

"What?"

"He looked scared, Steve." The retired agent furrowed his brow, guilty. "Scared of me. He didn't have a gun, any kind of weapon on him. For God's sake he was squatting in my barn."

"You did what you had to do to keep your family safe," the Avenger reasoned.

"He was so confused, didn't talk much. I don't think he knew where he was. Tony says he's still a threat, but weapons don't look at you like you're their last hope."

Steve rolled his eyes. "Try telling Tony that."

"I have," Clint snorted. "He's convinced I am not capable of remembering it correctly. Says Wanda's…magic has got me seeing things. We can't stop him."

"Stop him from doing what?" Tony could be a pain in the ass most of the time, but rarely there were moments in which he could be a serious threat.

"Stark," the other man explained, "has been reporting to a cross-nation board for the new restriction of, let's say, specially abled individuals."

"You mean they'll launch an investigation?" _Or they already have,_ a voice in his head warned.

"Tony was doing me a couple of favors trying to get approval for me to willingly surrender to a full property search." Clint raised his eyebrows.

"You turned him down," the captain realized aloud.

"Yeah?" The archer was surprised,

"He was more…Stark than usual." The pair started laughing at the absurdity of it all.

"Won't matter for long," the father wheezed. "He'll be granted his search. But at least now he knows he doesn't have my support. Tony will come around. He always does." Steve desperately wanted to agree with the statement, but something about Stark's fury earlier made him unsure. At least there was some assurance.

"He won't find anything," the leader revealed.

"Why do you say that?"

Steve held up the plastic bag, turning the poorly rendered logo to face his friend. "Because I found it." He handed it to Clint.

"Shit!" Clint pulled out several sheets, flipping through the scrawled messages. "It's a memory book…or well, bag." The captain raised an eyebrow in confusion. "Laura's mom had dementia. She had a notebook where she kept track of things." Instead of being comforted by the statement, Steve was slightly horrified.

"You think he still has difficulty remembering himself?" he asked and prayed the answer would be no.

"Look," the retired man explained, "I don't know what level of brainwashing we're dealing with, but he's had to sort out all of it on his own. Some memories may be more difficult or painful for him to access himself-" It was as if a light were switched on somewhere in Steve's head.

"Wait.! Wait. Say that again," he requested.

"What?"

"Repeat what you just said."

"Um…memories might be difficult for him to access himself," Clint said again. For a second, he stared at his friend in confusion, until the meaning of the situation suddenly dawned on him as well. "Oh my God."

"Wanda didn't take him back to be an assassin," the captain announced. "Wanda can see into his head. She can see all his memories."

"Holy shit, like some sort of bizarre savior complex?" Clint set the bag on the floor and got up out of his chair to retrieve his phone from the bedside table.

"Maybe. Her powers can reach out without her permission sometimes. She's not totally in control of them," he recalled, remembering many a training session in which she'd gotten inside his mind by accident.  
"Either way, she took Bucky to save him, not to go back to terrorism."

"We have to talk to Stark," Steve demanded.

"You can't-"

"He has to listen to reason."

"I don't think-" Their sudden argument was disrupted by a call from downstairs.

"Honey?" Clint's wife shouted from downstairs. "I need you to turn on the TV." Her husband grinned, teeth shining bright in the dark.

"Laura, it's fine if I miss one episode of Criminal Minds. Don't worry about it," the archer shouted back. He turned to his teammate. "Great show by the way. You should totally try to catch up before the finale."

"No," Laura clarified. "The news. Turn on the news. Channel 24." Clint looked confused, but followed his wife's instructions anyway, finding the remote and then the appropriate channel. At first glance it didn't appear to be anything special; just a female news reporter with a bobbed brown haircut and red lipstick clearly reading off the teleprompter. But then Steve started listening to what she was saying.

"What seemed like an average day in a crowded suburb outside Cleveland quickly turned into a town-wide panic." The reporter was quickly replaced with grainy phone camera footage of a mob, swirling and churning like waves. An image box pulled out the picture of a middle aged security guard with a black beard. " A civilian, seen here, spotted a suspicious couple huddled around a dumpster. Confronting the pair, the man quickly realized that these were no ordinary people." Even on the blurry phone footage Steve could clearly see bright flashes of what looked like red lightning splitting the crowd in two. He would have described it as such, if it weren't for the easily recognizable magic of his lost Avenger. "Unnatural defense mechanisms used by the two quickly led to a downtown stampede. A total of 15 people were seriously injured in the resulting violence, and a least 4 civilians are dead." A familiar face flashed past the camera as they pushed past the cameraman. Their second missing person was quick behind, before the camera crashed to the ground.

"Oh my God," Clint ran his hand through his hair, eyes as wide as quarters.

Two blurry camera pictures that were easily recognized as their old friends were enlarged on the screen. "The suspects have been identified as rogue Avenger Wanda Maximoff, traveling with previously missing H.Y.D.R.A assassin, the Winter Soldier, also known as James Buchanan Barnes. A nationwide search has been initiated. If you sight either of the two, please call the hotline number at the bottom of the screen. Exercise caution if approaching them. It has been reported that they are armed and dangerous." After the flashing hotline number stayed on screen for a couple of seconds, the woman continued to the next report, but neither man cared, staring off in silence.

"I don't care what you say," Clint said, "we're going after them."

 **Gosh, sorry for the long update time on this. I'll try to be more frequent for next chapters. I decided to take some time to finishing outlining this, which will hopefully pay off. Anyway, thank you for reading this most recent chapter of this fic. I hope you've enjoyed. If you want to be notified when I do update it, please follow, and if you want to make sure it's shared with other authors, make sure to favorite. Also, as always, there is nothing better than hearing from you guys, so make sure to leave all comments, critiques, feedback, predictions, etc. in a lovely review.**

 **Until next time.**


	4. The Interlopers

**The Interlopers**

Barnes watched Wanda cry while he scratched the remainder of the red star off his metal plated shoulder with the steel brush. She was perched on the side of one of the larger rocks, shaking from the damp, cold night. It was raining and pitch black. Not ideal conditions for further escape. No. In fact, it was dangerous to move any further in the dark.

He didn't know how to feel.

Had Barnes ever known how to help someone who was crying? Now, he felt all his muscles seize up, and got the urge to look away. Was that normal? What had been normal before H.Y.D.R.A.? He thought about asking Wanda, but as she stifled a sob with trembling fingers, he decided against it. So instead, he asked himself.

 _Who are you?_ That was always the first question, the hardest question. Automatically he wanted to repeat what Steve had told him. _"Your name is James Buchanan Barnes."_ The rain washed the little scraps of paint off the slippery surface of his arm. What was a name? If someone called that name on the street, Barnes would turn, respond to it. That was what a name was supposed to be, of course. His first question always brought up more questions, questions he didn't like. But he felt obligated to ask it at least once every day. But today, he had a slightly different answer.

"I'm called Barnes," he barely whispered to himself, sure that the thunder and rain would cover up the sound of his voice. "I'm a rogue. I used to be a person everyone liked to talk about. Then I was someone nobody mentions unless it was his fault. And now, I'm someone that people want to confuse with the other two." He needed these reminders most of the time. Otherwise the memories would slip away as easily as they had all those times. Or, that was what he thought.

The black stuff Wanda wore around her eyes started to smear along her cheeks. What was that called? He didn't know. "That girl over there," he continued to mutter, "her name is Wanda. She's like me. She's lost like me." Wanda wiped the back of her hands along her face, finally finding his eyes in the darkness.

"What are you saying?" she accused. Barnes shrunk back against the concrete wall and tucked his chin against his chest.

"I'm sorry," he whispered.

"For what?"

The assassin shrugged, staring at the bottom of the cracking bridge that the pair had huddled under after their escape. "I let them find us back there." It was true of course. In fact, the whole affair had been one mistake after another. Wanda had been an Avenger, friend to Steve Rodgers, and best of all, had managed to leave most of H.Y.D.R.A. behind her. Rescuing Barnes had taken all that away. _Where had he gotten her?_ Crying underneath a bridge in west Ohio.

"No, you didn't," Wanda denied. "I should have backed out the minute I saw that man." He felt his stomach flip.

"Howard," he muttered. She ran her hand through her dark, lank hair and stared at him. He could feel himself floating away from reality again, his mind focusing on the handsome face that had smiled ever so slightly before he was attacked.

"Who?"

"The man." Words started to spill out of his mouth automatically again, a triggered response he couldn't stop even by biting his tongue. "Howard Anthony Walter Stark. Age 74. Mission complete-" He couldn't stop the report from exiting his lips, but his companion could.

"Stark?" she practically shouted, getting to her feet. He could feel his shoulder blades digging into the concrete.

"Howard…"

Wanda seemed to be thinking out loud. "He was one of your targets," she realized. Barnes barely heard her, too entranced by the image of the grinning scientist with the bright eyes and wiry hair.

"He was a friend," Barnes tried to explain. For some reason, she appeared to think this was funny. A dark chuckle escaped her twisted smile.

"Do you assassinate your friends a lot?" she said. He tried to tell himself that she was just making a joke. She was kidding. She didn't mean it. But between his ears, entirely different words were echoing back and forth.

 _"_ _You're my friend!"_

 _"_ _You're. My. Mission."_

"I don't want to," Barnes twitched. He didn't look at Wanda, but he could feel her withdrawing.

"I didn't mean that as…" she apologized. He shook his head, and closed his eyes. The rain had lessened now, and he could hear the rumble of cars passing on the overhead bridge. He tried to focus on something, anything other than the conversation that had just taken place. And in that moment, listening to the rush of the weather, he almost felt peaceful. Almost. Of course, that was the word that most easily described Barnes. He was almost Bucky, almost the Soldier, almost a hero, but almost a villain. He opened his eyes and looked over at his companion. "I'm sorry," she said, knotting her fingers together in her lap.

He almost missed the sound of crunching leaves.

"We need to move now." Barnes leapt up, stumbling over himself in some form of an attempt to run from the source of the noise. His hands were jerking back and forth in desperate gestures for her to follow him. Wanda stared back in ignorance.

"We'll be recognized," she protested, still not moving as her charge lumbered out into the frigid rain. His hoodie and shirt started to seal onto his skin, as he shivered. She stayed planted to the ground, her eyes trying to translate the wordless warnings that came out of Barnes' mouth. "Our faces must be all over TV by now." She started to take that first step forward.

A shadow stepped out of the rest of the darkness, vaguely illuminated by a small device in his hand. Barnes' ribs felt as if they were trying to strangle his heart. The other man stepped into the light, revealing overly gelled dark hair and a well kept, yet oddly shaped goatee. "You don't need a television to be recognized, Red October," he smirked, the light in his eyes reflective of another man from another time. The man looked at the thing in his hand and bit his lip. Wanda whirled around, red already appearing between her fingers. The stranger pointedly clicked the device. Barnes recoiled at the bizarre, but nearly inaudible sound. But while he only heard a brief annoyance, a horrible strangled sound escaped from his companion's throat as she slowly slid down to the ground. Her eyes widened, all the color drained from her face. Barnes found himself unable to move as he could see her blood vessels turn black beneath the skin.

"Wanda!" he shouted. The other man rested Wanda against the wall, before looking nervously in Barnes' direction. The man shrugged off his actions. Wanda's face stayed strained and still, but her eyes were crying for help.

"She'll be fine," the interloper chuckled. "Trust me. Rodgers would murder me if I harmed his prize pupil." He raised an eyebrow at Barnes' impending confusion.

"Steve…" Barnes struggled, "you know…Steve and Wanda…" He took a couple of steps back as the mud started seeping into his shoes. The stranger cocked his head to one side and removed two gray pieces of tech from his ears, all the while pointedly staring at Barnes with a venomous look. "Who are you?"

The intruder opened his mouth, baffled. "Congratulations Soldier," he cackled. "You must be about the only person on this planet who can't recognize Tony Stark." He tapped himself on the chest for emphasis. But Barnes wasn't listening, too distracted by the sound of his own heartbeat rushing through his ears.

"Stark?" His mouth was suddenly very dry.

"Look," Tony scoffed "I know you're dealing with some Back to the Future bullshit right now but I'm sort of surprised that your savior over here failed to mention some pretty crucial information." The expression in Wanda's eyes seemed to confirm his fears.  
The curved smile. The hair. The mischievous glint in his eyes. The sobbing woman in the passenger seat. Howard. Howard had a son. Barnes wanted to vomit as he looked into the reflection of a dead man. Did Tony know? His panic was suddenly replaced by an overwhelming and unnerving sense of calm, as if someone had drenched him in lukewarm water. He found his fingers working their way into his back pocket. Unlike Wanda, he didn't have powers that could control other people. She'd gotten him a knife back in Cleveland, the knife which he now felt, comforting, in his hand. Somewhere in the back of his head, a part of him was screaming, but the action had become so automatic, he couldn't help but pull out the blade so it glinted in the dim street light. He knew from the amused look on Tony's face that the intruder had come to kill him. They would all come to kill him.

The new Stark opened his mouth wide and his eyes wider. Barnes thought he'd achieved some form of victory, until he looked down at his chest. The entirety of the filthy black sweatshirt was spotted with little red lights. They had all come. Tony Stark was far from being alone.

"Put down the knife," Stark instructed. The glint in his dark eyes made Barnes' grip only tighten. The pinpoints on his chest felt like needles in his skin, despite no one pulling the trigger. Yet. He wasn't used to being so conflicted with a weapon in his hand. His instincts, or rather programming, were telling him to attack. Something else, however, was sweating in fear of killing another ill-fated member of the Stark family. _You don't kill people. Not anymore._

"Wanda!" he shouted, desperate for some way out. The plates on his arm readjusted with a threatening clank. He couldn't move for fear of being shot to pieces by the snipers, but he could punish them in a different way.

"Look, look, calm down. Soldier-" Tony tried, equipping himself with a weapon of his own. In one fluid motion he pulled his watch up his forearm before pulling it out in what looked like some poor, bulky imitation of Barnes' own hand. As if this man even needed additional weapons when he had snipers ready to fire.

"Don't call me that!" Barnes' warned. Stark looked around the damp abandoned forest, as if looking for a cue from someone. He finally seemed to make up his mind, gesturing to the runaway gently with his remaining human arm.

"Wanda is fine," he reassured. "This thing? Sonic Taser. It just keeps her from moving." Horrified, Barnes looked over at his paralyzed friend and swore that he'd seen something that Tony had gravely underestimated. The moment the pair locked eyes, he definitely saw a brief flash of crimson circle around her pupil. Wanda was the most powerful individual Barnes had ever met. If Stark thought that little pen light could hold her for long, he was kidding himself. Her eyes seemed to be begging her companion. _I just need a little time,_ she seemed to be telling him. He turned back to the interloper.

"That's not fine!" Barnes refuted. "You think that's okay?" For the first time in the exchange, Tony seemed to get legitimately pissed off. His eyes narrowed, and there was poison behind the dark iris and pupil. The sides of Stark's mouth started to curl.

"Don't you dare try to talk morals to me," he snarled.

Barnes' felt his hands go very cold. He knew. He knew. "Whoever you think I am," the runaway said, "that's not me anymore."

"Soldier-" Tony said, purposely trying to aggravate him with the name. Whatever the sick strategy was, it was working.

"Don't call me that!" Barnes shouted automatically.

Tony seemed to relax in body, but the deadly quality behind his face sharpened. When he spoke, it was in a hushed voice. "You're responsible for the deaths of over 750 innocent people." 750. Barnes could feel himself collapsing from the inside out. His skin started to quake. He'd never heard the number, had never been able to quantify the exact number from the scattered memories. His victims were always screaming somewhere in his head, but he had never counted. 750. No. He couldn't have.

"And that's only from the specified missions we've found in files," Stark continued. "You can't just walk away from that."

Seven hundred and fifty. It wasn't real. He couldn't.

"I didn't…I wasn't…" Barnes tried to explain. It wasn't working.

"There's a kill order on your head, Soldier," Stark said, approaching him closer now. The runaway could barely hear him over the screams from his own mind. "And I'm not going to fulfill it. Whoever I think you are, you have rights." the interloper bowed his head, before flashing a comforting smile. "And Clint wanted me to give you a chance, Jaime Lannister." The more Stark talked, the more confused and agitated Barnes became. He had to use all his energy to stay still, not to lash out. God, that was all his instincts told him to do. "He doesn't think you're dangerous," Tony laughed, and gestured to the knife. "Clearly, he's wrong. I told him you were armed."

 _Breathe,_ a familiar and accented voice whispered in the runaway's head. _You're forgetting to breathe._ It took every ounce of self control within his body not to look in Wanda's direction, despite his immediate recognition of her tone.

"But he told me something else," the cocky smile and arrogant expression began to melt off of his face. "He said you would have known my dad." The way he said that; without his normal gloating affectation, made Barnes' stomach lurch.

 _Don't let him confuse you,_ Wanda said. _Focus on my voice._

"I-I-" Barnes stuttered. "I knew…Howard." He hated the way that Tony's eyes lit up ever so slightly, even in the grim light. The wave of guilt it brought over his body made him want to vomit, and he could start to feel the blade of the knife digging into his human palm.

 _I can deal with this_ , she gloated.

"I just-" Tony stepped forward cautiously, reaching towards Barnes' in an oddly genuine fashion. For a brief second, the runaway was tempted to respond. He could make it right. He could atone for what he'd done. He could help Tony.

But before any of that could happen, he followed Stark's suddenly furious expression down to his chest, where, one after the other, each of the red lights withdrew from their position.

 _I took care of your sniper situation_ , Wanda explained. _Now get us out of here._

Tony turned his weapon on Barnes, just in time for the former Soldier to slide the pocketknife into the scientist's stomach.

The caller ID that appeared on her phone was not one she was fond of, but she also knew that this wasn't the kind of call that she could turn down. She winced in anticipation as she picked up the phone. "Natasha!" he barked from the other side of the line. The Avenger couldn't help but roll her eyes as she flinched away from the telephone.

"Tony?" she said, trying to stay patient in some capacity.

"Where the hell are you?" His accusatory tone was obliterated by a rough, wet cough that continued for a good 30 seconds. _Quite the charmer today, aren't you Stark?_ she thought to herself.

"You sound awful," Natasha pointed out. "Are you okay?"

"Okay?" his laugh sounded just as unpleasant as his cough. "Apart from being skewered and left for dead, yeah."

"What?"

"I got a knife to the stomach 'From Russia With Love.'"

"You found Bucky," confirmed the assassin.

"You bet I did."

"I'm assuming you didn't get him then." She didn't phrase it as a question. "Have you told Clint?" Now _that_ was something she needed answered.

"Our resident bird brain, ironically, isn't at his residency." Natasha didn't see the purpose of skidding around the topic. Both she and Tony knew that Clint was going after Bucky, with or without Steve. Of course, she wasn't about to reveal her knowledge of the topic.

"Is that a problem?" Natasha accused, "Clint's retired. He's not on parole." The silence was more telling than his words. Tony could be such a motormouth. He lived off using a thousand words to say nothing at all, but the moment he stopped talking, was when he actually decided to start communicating.

"There's a meeting tomorrow, Natasha. I want you to be there," Stark announced out of the blue. This was the part that she always hated.

"I don't really see the point of-" she tried to protest, though she knew full well that it would do nothing.

"We're moving forward. I want you there." The click of the phone as it hung up was the only indication that Tony Stark had somehow won the exchange. She would let him keep thinking that.

Natasha only paused a second before she hurriedly dialed Clint's number.

 **Thank you for checking out the latest installment of this little story of mine. I hope you enjoyed! If you want to be informed of when I update again, make sure to follow this story. If you want to share it with other authors and readers, please favorite. And, as always, I love hearing from you guys, so please leave all critiques, comments, predications, and feedback in a review. Thank you again, and until next time…**


	5. Lighthouses

**Lighthouses**

Her skin felt like it was on fire. It was nowhere near the pain that she'd felt when Tony had pressed that button, but the constant sensation that sparked across every nerve was getting too much to bear. She kept her eyes tightly closed, for fear of the great red expanse she would see if they were opened. The last thing she had seen was the car making a right run onto the highway as Barnes slammed his foot on the gas.

On the road again, running had become the only thing that felt natural. But this time something was different. She'd spent the past days in the depths of Barnes' mind. She'd seen the glimmer that existed underneath his dead expression. He wasn't the Soldier anymore. And she wasn't an asset either. Yet in those brief moments before Tony, she'd felt the pull within him, and even inside herself. His expression had so quickly switched from desperation to violence, Wanda had barely had time to tell the two apart. She too had felt a horrible tug, the very second when she could feel the pain from Stark's weapon welling up inside her, demanding a large source with which to express itself. She'd experienced that dark desire to pull upon the mind and will of the masses. The instant she pulled the gunman's aim of off Barnes she was reminded of the violated look on Barnes and Pietro's faces when she had used her abilities on them.

The doctor had been right. She wasn't supposed to be a hero. She was a lightning rod, a mere object meant to channel something greater than herself for whichever cause she supported at that moment. And wasn't that what a monster was, anyway? Less than a person? Barnes' thought he was a monster, but that wasn't his problem at all. He was too many people at once. Inside his mind was more human than she had ever experienced in her life. Without Pietro, her power became her other half, and she found it making more than her decisions. The red glow that the doctor had called a miracle, had instead become her affliction.

"Too much and too little," she mumbled feverishly, as another wave of white hot pain struck her with all its force. She couldn't help but laugh. "Maybe we'll make a whole person one day." She was distantly aware of Barnes' shouting a response in the seat next to her, but what Wanda was suddenly made aware of, were his warm fingertips pressed against her forearm.

The lightning in her skin had found an outlet. She gasped, opening her eyes to a sudden blinding glow of scarlet. She couldn't tell if she was screaming or just trying to breathe, her eyes drowning in the overwhelming sea of red. Wanda could now hear exactly what Barnes was saying. It was a simple word, yet he was barely able to get it out.

"Please," he stuttered. Looking over to him, she finally found his blue eyes, bright a lighthouses, just before they rolled into the back of his head. Wherever those eyes went, Wanda's powerful mind followed.

 _A pair of scrawny boys played patty cake with one another, the smaller one breaking off into a barrage of coughing. The memory sped through life, as the dark haired boy grew. He moved on from patty cake to fist fights, split lips replacing smiles, and winks giving way to black eyes. She watched him develop from a gangly pre-teen traversing Brooklyn with Steve in tow, into a suave confidant. He spend his days with his ill mother and strong-willed sister, while his nights were pre-occupied with jazz clubs and red-lipped women in pencil skirts. She could feel her eyes start to water, as the images continued to flash with increasing velocity._

 _Wanda saw him receive his enlistment letter, say his goodbyes, and ship off. His training flashed before her eyes in a barrage of blood and mud. Her eyes weren't the only part of her body that was piercing with pain. It suddenly dawned on her that she was witnessing his entire life in a matter of seconds. She saw a grimy, rusty operating room, spotlights glaring in his face. The images were moving so quickly, Wanda barely had time to understand, or even differentiate them. A man desperately ran through a burning building. That image was immediately followed with one of a frozen landscape. Her vision went red, white, and every color in between. A doctor in blue scrubs tested out a decrepit looking bone saw. Wanda saw the faces of over 50 people, with no distinct characteristics except their blank dead faces. Then, someone began speaking, a voice she didn't recognize, in words that were just out of her range of comprehension. "желание," the man's voice boomed, each word more confusing than the next, "ржaвый, Семнадцать, Рассвет," he paused a moment, as if checking her reaction. "Печь, Девять, добросердечный, возвращение на родину, Один, грузовой вагон."_

She was almost physically wrenched from the memory, back into the world, in a mess of thick, black smoke, and acrid choking smell. Her environment seemed to have exploded into cacophony and chaos. As she drowsily opened her eyes, Wanda barely had time to recognize the absence of pain in her head, before survival instinct kicked in. She coughed, rolling over in her seat, only restrained by the belt over her shoulder. _Fire_ , she thought immediately, as smoke poured into her throat. _Fire, run, escape_. Squinting tears in the exhaust, she clawed at the door, completely disoriented.

"Wanda!" a raw voice screamed. The door gave way, and she was able to gasp in fresh air, hacking as she did so. She sprawled on the hard ground, still struggling to get to her feet. "We have to go!" Barnes shouted. Wanda was still blinded from the smoke, but she somehow managed to stumble forward, away from the fire and ruin.

"What's going on?" she coughed. The air was getting clearer, and as Wanda turned to look back, she suddenly came to the realization of what was happening. The grimy stolen sedan was tipped on its side, beaten and dented to all hell, smoking as fires leaked out of broken hood.

"I couldn't drive," Barnes growled, "not with you in my head." She could still see the highway through the trees and fumes. They must have gone off the road.

"It wasn't my fault," Wanda panted. "I couldn't help it." Barnes gritted his teeth, his metal arm wrapped around the nearest tree. She was suddenly aware of the tension on his face, his sweaty pale face intense and taught. He was using the trunk as a support, his right leg barely touching the ground. "Are you okay?" she asked. Barnes closed his eyes, his breathing shallow. She followed his focus from his face down to his leg. The ankle of his pant leg was darker, wet and glistening.

"We can't keep doing this," he shook his head. "I can't put all of this at risk. It isn't worth it." Barnes turned so his back was now pressed against the tree. He bowed his head, profiled against the fire and smoke. Wanda stared in awe.

"I don't care about the risk," she said. "I chose this. I still choose this."

"This isn't your choice," Barnes said, wincing as he moved his leg. She waited for him to say something else, anything, an explanation. Instead, he stood stony as a statue without speaking or even looking at her.

"Barnes," she whispered, "If I didn't think you were worth it, I would have left you tied to that tractor." Wanda was again left waiting for a response that wasn't coming. He tucked his chin against his collarbone, just staring down his nose. His jaw moved up and down with the rhythm of his breath.

Then all at once, he exploded into motion. Barnes swept between the trees, only slightly slowed down by his bleeding leg.

"You can't leave!" As her rage reflected in her voice, and her palm. Barnes was stopped in his tracks, red swirling at his feet. She could see his muscles straining against her, his teeth gritting back and fort as his jaw tried to crack the unbreakable bounds of her abilities. "You've run from everything and everyone that has ever given you a chance!" Energy tore through her nerves with each individual word. "I'm not letting you run from this."

"Wanda," he managed to say, voice tight and rough. "Please. Stop."

"Steve has been looking for you for over a year," she accused. "You knew he was out there, and you still ran. I'm telling you that I still want to help you, that I'm willing to take the risk, and yet you want to run again. I'm not letting you!" Wanda could feel her eyes watering and it only made her grip on him tighten.

"I've had too many people force me to do things that get innocent people hurt. Wanda," Barnes said. "I never thought you would be one of those people." Shock lessened her grip just enough for him to turn and look at her. She stared into his eyes, those blue lighthouses sweeping the expanse of ruin, and suddenly understood. And with that understanding, she felt the world come crashing down.

The sun had finally risen to mark the beginning of a gray day at the empty gas station coffee bar. Clint was on his fourth cup of the morning, stretched over the morning news. The headline "ASSASSIN RESURFACES TO A FURIOUS STAMPEDE" only reflected the dreary steel sky on the windows outside. Steve couldn't bring himself to read the entire article himself, but his companion had poured over the story again and again for the past half hour. Natasha's call had sent the pair into a flurry of desperate research, perusing any news that had broken, and compiling what they already knew. Clint had gotten barely 2 hours of sleep before the phone call. and Steve had even less. The early news from their friend had left him wide awake.

Bucky had hurt someone, after the brainwashing had been broken. Bucky had stabbed someone. And not just anyone. Tony Stark.

Steve sighed, pushing the newspaper to the corner of the table. "Is there any way we can figure out where they're going?" Clint took a sip of coffee, shrugging.

"There's a reason no one could find The Winter Soldier for all those years of operation," he said, looking lost himself. "And they're running. I don't think they even have a plan."

"There has to be some way to track Wanda at least," Steve sighed.

"God, I wish we had Banner," said Clint, almost laughing. He ran his fingers desperately through his hair. "Hell, I wish we had Stark."

"We just…" Steve came up blank. "We have to figure out something. And fast."

"Right now the only thing we can track looks like their trail of destruction," the archer said, "and the trail looks completely random." Steve looked over at the discarded paper bag, several of the different slips sticking out the top.

"If you haven't noticed," he said, "his entire mind is sort of random."

"But what about Wanda?" Clint asked, flipping through the newspaper with a baffled expression. "She at least has to have some strategy."

"Maybe he's rubbing off on her," Steve said, resting his hand on his left temple.

"I hope she's rubbing off on him," Clint snorted. "Maybe she got him to stab Tony."

"I can't believe he did that," said Steve.

"Someone was bound to stab him at some point," Clint tried to comfort, the exhaustion shining through his words. A tired Clint was a Clint without a filter. "At least it wasn't me. God knows Laura has enough Tony related paperwork to deal with already."

Steve nodded pensively, staring out the window. "Is he still bothering you about a property search?" he said. He knew the archer would answer the question whether he asked it or not.

"Are you kidding?" Clint slowly exhaled, making erratic gestures. "For a playboy, he sure knows how to bury other people in paperwork-" He was cut off by his cell phone buzzing angrily on the table. The agent caught it between his palms, just as it vibrated off the edge. Clint read the caller ID in a split second, before squinting, and reading it again. He turned the phone so its screen faced Steve. "Recognize the number?" Steve shook his head, hands already clenched under the table. Clint shrugged, trying to seem nonchalant, but his doubtful eyes gave it away.

He lifted the phone to his ear. "Hello?" Steve carefully watched Clint's reaction, the voice on the other end loud enough to be audible from across the table. While he flinched away at first, the archer's eyes lit up in recognition. He gripped the phone so tightly his skin turned white. His mouth worked wordlessly along with the receiver, clinging to every word. "Slow down," he interjected. "Where are you?"

Steve locked eyes with him, mouthing "Who is it?" Clint struggled to plug a pair of tangled headphones into the phone jack.

"Wanda," he mouthed back. Steve sat up in his chair, the muscles in his body all tensing at once. Clint finally got the headphones in, handing one earbud to Steve with trembling fingers. "Breathe," the agent instructed in a fatherly tone. With the earbud in, Steve was suddenly aware of heavy scared breathing.

"Wanda, it's Steve," he announced, trying to keep his voice level and free of any kind of emotional response. "Where are you?"

"It's not important." Her voice was heavy and her tone vague. Clint shook his head, raising both eyebrows. Steve nodded, pressing on.

"Clint and I are in Ohio," he said. "We've been looking for you."

"I'm not a lost child, Steve," Wanda responded. "I don't need you to find me." Her tone was somehow flustered and level at the same time. She was hiding her anxiety just under the surface.

"Breathe, Wanda," Clint reminded. "If you don't want to be found, why are you calling us?" The silence on the other side of the line was so profound, Steve was sure that she had hung up.

"He's gone," she whispered in a shaking voice. "Barnes is gone." It took Steve a moment to realize that she was referring to Bucky. He couldn't help but be surprised at the notion of Bucky willingly going by that name. The only people who had ever called Bucky "Barnes" were military commanders too careless to call him by his title. He didn't even immediately register the significance of what she was saying.

"What do you mean he's gone?" Clint interjected.

Wanda began to explain, "I-" The end of her response was replaced with roaring white noise. Clint flinched away from the phone, tugging at the end of his earbud.

"Wanda, wait! Where is-" Steve tried, clutching the edge of the table.

The noise finally gave way to a robotic announcement, "Your line has been disconnected." Steve struggled to stop himself from cursing as he tore the headphone out of his ear. Clint appeared to internalize his own frustration, closing his eyes and massaging his temples.

"Damn," he muttered, shoving the newspaper to the other side of the table. The two broiled in the utter tragedy of the entire situation, both lost in their own thoughts. Steve opened his mouth to say something else, but before the words could pass his lips, the phone started buzzing again. Clint didn't even bother to look at his companion before picking up the call. Steve rushed to get the earbud back in.

"Wanda!" Clint urged immediately, giving the person on the other end no time. Yet, when the responder finally spoke, it was in a cool, hushed voice.

"She called from a public phone booth," the woman warned.

"Nat?" The pair exchanged a nervous glance.

"Who taught Maximoff to use a public, traceable phone when she was avoiding detection?" she hissed. At first, the question seemed ridiculous and out of nowhere, but the underlying meaning quickly dawned on Steve. Of course Tony and his team had gotten hold of the call. They probably already knew where Wanda was.

"You have the coordinates?" he asked.

"Everyone has the coordinates, Steve," Natasha sighed. "Why do you think the call got disconnected? Tony is itching to go." The image of an aggressive, injured Tony Stark was not one that Steve wanted to be facing. Clint seemed to agree.

"He's not gone already?" the agent questioned. He passed the pen and paper over to Steve, shoving the rest of the assorted newspapers into his duffle bag. It was suspicious to leave the gas station in such a hurry, but at that point, they really didn't have much of a chance.

"He's getting clearance to leave the hospital," said Natasha. Steve could hear her hurrying on the other end. They were on the move. "But believe me, people are already on their way." _I'm sure_ , Steve thought resentfully.

"Where was she?" Clint said, before quickly adding "Wanda, I mean." Steve clicked the pen in anticipation.

"Yellow Springs, Ohio," she said. Steve scrawled every word. Natasha read off a serious of latitudes and longitudes, along with a brief description of the area. It would be wooded, she explained. The phone booth was right off the highway.

"Thanks Nat," he said out of the corner of his mouth, tearing the sheet off of the pad. Still held together with the headphones, Steve and Clint started out the door, discarding their cheap cardboard cups.

"I'm headed out, boys," Natasha announced, just as Steve was met with the cool morning breeze. He shivered.

"Wait!" he stopped. "Do we have a location on Bucky?" Steve could hear her sigh, audibly struggling for the proper words.

"Steve, you're not going to like this," she warned. When the captain said nothing of protest, she continued. "If everything Wanda said was true, Bucky ran." It was a revelation that had been gnawing at the lining of Steve's stomach ever since Wanda had called. He couldn't help but feel sick. Bucky had stabbed someone and run off. It was behavior that mirrored his streak after Washington. It was behavior that reminded Steve of the Winter Soldier.

"He could still be-" Steve tried. As the words passed his lips, he became aware that he was convincing himself, not Natasha. She wasn't buying it either.

"Focus on getting Wanda," the assassin instructed. "Tony doesn't want her. He'll get to Bucky before you can do anything."

"Wai-" Steve tried again.

"I have to go." She hung up.

"Nat's right," Clint confessed, pulling out the headphones as they headed to the car. "Wanda's out there. She's scared. She doesn't know what she's doing. She's just a kid." Steve shrugged into the driver's seat.

"Next stop, Yellow Springs, Ohio."


End file.
